Beware gap in window

THE end of the transfer window is in sight – and let me tell you most managers hate this month. It has been quiet and though a number of clubs may be feeling the financial pinch, I suspect the real action is about to begin.

Graham Taylor advises managers not to rush into clandestine deals at service stations []

If a club comes in late for a player, there is less time and opportunity for the selling club to negotiate and, depending on the player’s length of contract, his employers may believe they should cash in. There is always the fear they may not get a better offer at the end of the season.

Yes, bosses hate this window. Signing a new player now and expecting him to have an immediate effect on the success of the team is a big gamble. More so if the player is married and has a family, particularly of school age.

Whatever we may think about players’ earning capacities and the celebrity status we give them, they are still human beings and the upheaval of a family is better dealt with in the close season during the summer than in the cold, winter mid-season.

Signings now tend to be born out of urgency, desperation even. They rarely have the desired, immediate effect.

I remember one player I signed mid-season with the old March deadline looming. The “tapping,” which happens today, was done through a third party for an experienced midfielder. I will spare his blushes. I was buying him for Watford in the old Third Division. A decent fee was involved.

We arranged to meet him at Watford Gap Services on the M1 and I went with our chief executive Eddie Plumley to tie up the deal. That is where it went wrong. As we spoke I got the feeling that this lad wasn’t for me…just a feeling. It ended with him asking for time to consider the move and I should have said there and then: “Stop, I don’t want you.”

But I did not have the heart and I was wrong. That night I did not sleep, praying he would turn us down. But he said yes and, sure enough, the deal was a disaster. It just did not work out.

That is what can happen when you buy in haste yet, to this day, that player and I still exchange Christmas cards.

So players will be tapped up well in advance of transfers that happen this month. These days, do not ask the player. Ask his agent.

What this can mean is that sometimes as early as the first week in December, a player can play for his club’s first team, against a side who have already tapped him up, and then the transfer is completed in this window. That is ludicrous. At least in the summer window, transfers are completed when there is little or no football being played.

Most of my managerial career was spent when the last Thursday in March was the deadline for transfers. The old cut-off was to prevent clubs signing any player beyond that date who may help win them promotion or prevent relegation so late in the season.

That system was deemed not to be fair to those clubs who did not have the money to make such purchases. Does that seem like the good old days? In all truth, clubs who signed players so close to the March deadline rarely got the best out of them in what was left of the season. The same is usually true for today’s January deals.

The power of the player has dramatically increased since my early managerial days, and now to let a valuable player run his contract into its final year is akin to throwing money out of the window.

Some players take this course for obvious reasons and there is no doubt that three or four transfers during a player’s career can make him a very wealthy young man, even if his talents are below average. Whether we like it or not, that is the way of the game now. But one thing remains the same; a manager is ultimately judged by his signings and the January transfer window can easily be the start of all of his troubles.

My advice? Steer clear of it if possible. If not, make sure you know not just about the player’s ability, but even more importantly what kind of person he is. Remember it is the person you are signing, not just the player.

And beware of doing any deals at Watford Gap.

GRAHAM TAYLOR is official brand ambassador for Precision Training, Britain’s leading supplier of sports training aids. Precision Training are official suppliers of specialist training aids to the Football League.